Over the weekend I installed a retail Plus USB 2.0 4-port "self-powered" USB (small metallic sqaure) hub onto my Windows XP Pro system (ASUS A7V8X-X mobo, Athon 2500+ CPU, 512 MB RAM), or rather I plugged the hub's USB connector into one of the PC's USB ports. This hub also comes with a red "power cable" with a red USB connector at one end for the PC and a custom connector at the other end that attaches to the USB hub. Presumably it draws in additional "power" for the hub, as the marketing claim is that "1000 milliamps" are then available for connected devices. Shortly after connecting the hub, a burn being done at the and of a 9 ft or so USB cable, on an HP DVD 420e external drive, a full reformat of a DVD-RW disc failed with an "illegal disc" error in Nero. I finally got a good format on the next try, and then tried to burn a disc with data files using that DVD-RW disc. A few minutes later an electrical odor common to overheating components became strongly evident in the room (no smoke though), and the odor was determined to be coming from the DVD 420e. Nero had simply frozen in the write process and showed no error on screen. This drive has been in service nearly two years with no previous problems. I disassembled the DVD 420e and determined that the power supply brick is supplying the exact correct voltage even now, as is what looks like a USB-to-IDE interface card and power connector inside the drive assembly. The odor was easily traceable to the motor that drives the laser head positioning mechanism gears. So, I am wondering whether it is possible that the USB hub has caused this failure. After this failure occurred, I also noticed that my Sony DRU720A internal DVD writer in the PC was now generating "illegal disc" errors in Nero and writes to DVD-R and DVD-RW discs all failed consistently in that burner, which previously had experienced no problems. I restored the PC using a mid-Feb. 2005 Norton Ghost image and the DRU720A then returned to normal error-free operation. Any takers on whether Nero might have caused the external failure in addition to the USB hub possibility. It seems unlikely to me that both drives would start writing poorly and that one would fail completely at the same time, and there not be some "connection' common to both failures.
the hub can cause the problem,as the hub is getting its power from the mother board..as if the drain of the voltage goes down using the hub..the curent gos up and can cause a over-heating condition. any usb hub i ever used has its own external power supply.A/C if i was you i would get a hub with it own external juice..
